Hi all, I’ve been delayed in posting about these what with Emmy excitement, but I’ve decided all my nominees and want to start sharing my favorites. (I’ll announce winners at an undetermined later date.)

I’ll note right off the bat that, as usual, I determine my own category placements and this year I didn’t closely follow Emmy submissions at all. For instance, only one of my Drama Lead Actress nominees was actually eligible in that category at the Emmys.

Anyway, I’ll start with my General Field nominees. Those are the technical categories (plus Best Episode) where all TV programs (comedy, drama, movie/mini) are eligible to compete against each other.

The pictures I’m using for each category below are only an example of a nominee, and may or may not reflect the eventual winner. I’m including them because I like to give things visual interest. 🙂

Best Casting“Arrested Development”“Louie”“Rectify”“Southland”“Top of the Lake”“The Walking Dead”

Best Cinematography“Breaking Bad”“Hannibal”“House of Cards”“Mad Men”“Southland”

** Editing is a new category for me. I’ve been trying to make more of an effort to pay attention to how editing is used and how it affects the storytelling in film and TV. It’s kind of an invisible art that’s hard to judge, but these were the programs where I most noticed a positive effect from the way scenes are cut.

Next up, here are my three categories for New Series. This is always a great category to look back on to consider some of the great shows I awarded here (“Buffy,” “Arrested Development,” “Lost,” etc.) and some of the ones I didn’t (“Breaking Bad,” “The Wire”). You can’t always judge a great show by its first season, and not all shows with great first seasons continue being great, though I can’t think of a winner in this category I’ve regretted. Okay, maybe “Dawson’s Creek,” but in my defense I was 14.

In the past 16 years, only one show has ever swept all three of these prizes: “The Sopranos.”

Best New Television Series“The Americans”“Bates Motel”“Hannibal”“House of Cards”“The Mindy Project”“Rectify”

Now my Special Class categories, my weird, funky hybrid catch-alls for movies, miniseries, variety, reality, specials, etc. Most awards are like comparing apples to oranges. These categories are sometimes like comparing apples to marmosets.

You won’t find programs like “American Horror Story,” “The Hour,” and “The Big C: Hereafter” represented here. I have those competing in various series categories.

Best Special Class Series“The Colbert Report”“The Daily Show with Jon Stewart”“Inside Amy Schumer”“The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson”“MythBusters”“Portlandia”

Best Featured Performer in Special Class ProgrammingHolly Hunter — “Top of the Lake”Kyle MacLachlan — “Portlandia”Kate McKinnon — “Saturday Night Live”Peter Mullan — “Top of the Lake”Josh Robert Thompson — “The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson”Thomas M. Wright — “Top of the Lake”

Best Special Class Writing“Behind the Candelabra”“The Colbert Report”“The Daily Show with Jon Stewart”“Louis CK: Oh My God”“Portlandia”“Top of the Lake”

Best Special Class Directing“Behind the Candelabra”“London 2012 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony”“Phil Spector”“Portlandia”“Top of the Lake”

Great list of nominees and while in my awards I consider AHS and The Hour miniseries I can see why you would keep picking these ase series.

I don’t mind “American Horror Story” competing as a miniseries at the Emmys since each season is a complete, self-contained story with new characters. I didn’t watch most of the first season (just the pilot) , so when I watched “Asylum” and knew I wanted to nominate it, I couldn’t decide where to put it because neither classification fit perfectly. I ultimately decided to call it a series since it’s a continuing program with the same production team.

Now for my Comedy nominees! I’ve added four new categories to my awards (two in comedy, two in drama): taking a page from the WGA Awards, I now have two separate categories for writing and directing: an overall category that honors all the credited writers and directors from the season, and the preexisting categories honoring episodic writing and directing.

Every year there have been shows that I consider great pieces of writing or directing, yet no one episode stands out enough for me to nominate it for an episodic award, and lot of deserving shows end up sitting out those races. So this year I get to rectify those problems.

** The drama supporting races are so crowded — I could go 20-30 deep before running out of deserving nominees — that I decided to promote a few actors generally considered supporting who I think can be reasonably considered leads based on their storylines and screentime.